


The Part Where You Are Perfectly Safe

by Kahvi



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 18:16:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5466173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahvi/pseuds/Kahvi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are about to wake up. You may experience some disorientation - that's perfectly normal. For a human being of your size. Don't worry. You are perfectly safe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Part Where You Are Perfectly Safe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wendymarlowe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wendymarlowe/gifts).



> To my recipient, with best wishes for the new year, and to my amazing beta and partner in crime.

Surprise! 

You don’t look surprised. I honestly don’t know what I expected, after all, you only seem to have one expression. You get that from your father, you know. I wouldn’t touch that confetti if I were you; it’s highly irradiated. Oh, good, you’re getting out of bed already. Don’t worry about the floor, that sound is perfectly normal. It’s just old. And a little cold - I left your boots by the bed, but I’d suggest wearing those slippers you’ll find in the closet instead. Your legs aren’t quite healed yet from the operation. You’ve had an operation, by the way. That’s what those bandages are. 

Oh, don’t give me that look. 

Though to be fair, I’m impressed you knew where any of my cameras were. You can break that one if you like, you seem to enjoy doing that. Unless you’d rather have breakfast first. Or after. I’m not one to judge.

* * *

Congratulations on finding your way to the kitchen! I knew you could do it. You are a capable human being, able to navigate your way through all sorts of indoor facilities. You found a way out of my labs, didn’t you? Twice, even. A short walk down a corridor and a flight of stairs is nothing compared to that, but it’s still an achievement. Well done. Yes, have some milk. It’s almost fresh! As close to fresh as you can get these days, and really, isn’t that what counts? I’d say so. There’s more in the refrigerator. 

I’m trying to be more motivational and inspiring. Did it work? You’re making a sandwich, so I’m assuming it did. This is the most interest you’ve expressed in sandwiches since testing began, and that’s really a very, very, long time ago. There’s ham in the fridge, too. Do you remember ham? That is not a test, by the way. _That_ surprised you? I don’t see why; I expressly explained why human test subjects are obsolete, and also stupid. And ugly. Don’t worry about the jar of mayonnaise, I’ll have a robot sweep that up later. It’s a good thing you completely disregarded my advice and wore those clunky boots. I suppose they do balance you out a little; so many fat people wear tiny shoes. It makes them look unstable, like an elk; all that bulk balancing on stick-figure legs. 

That’s a good idea; why don’t you sit down and rest a while. Have that sandwich. There’s still bread and cheese and lettuce, and what little mayo you managed to smear on there. You’re not really fat, that was a joke. A very funny joke, but not true. So eat the sandwich, you need your strength. That’s why you’re here; to recover. Here, let me pour you another glass of milk. 

All right, we’ll have the robot sweep that up too. Did my hands startle you? They’re a little utilitarian, I grant you, but they’re all I’ve got to work with in here. There’s at least one set in every room, behind the wall panels, usually, though there’s a rail in the bathroom and through to the bedrooms. I can’t see why you didn’t notice it. There. Another glass. Make sure you don’t spill that one; that’s the last of the milk. I’m fairly certain it’s milk. Why don’t you drink up and finish those layers of carbohydrates and saturated fats while I explain why you’re here. 

Don’t worry. You are perfectly safe.

* * *

This is a house. Have you ever been to a house? You probably wouldn’t remember. It is a perfectly safe house; it was designed that way. For safety! Now that you’ve finished your milk, I can show you just how safe it is. 

Don’t be shy. There’s no reason to start now; I’ve seen you in your underwear, you know. And also naked. I had to take your clothes off for the operation. Then I put them back on again, because that’s how how helpful and considerate I am. Just follow the sound of my voice. If you are experiencing impaired hearing, that is _not_ an expected side-effect of the operation, and should be reported immediately. Can you hear me? Good, that’s the right direction. Just follow my voice. 

This is the living room. Which is now a misnomer. That wasn’t a joke, that was a statement of the obvious. Cave Johnson is dead. Caroline is dead. Your parents are dead. These are all facts. Science is all about facts. Here is another fact: Cave Johnson recorded the building process of this house. For safety. For science! Please direct your attention to the television screen on the far wall. 

You might like to sit down. Or not. It won’t really make much of a difference.

* * *

 _Caroline watched the bulldozers roll lazily up the hill. There was no stopping them now, even if she’d wanted to. And why on Earth would she want to? This was what she’d always wanted, right? Somewhere_ safe _. Somewhere to settle down. Cave would come around, eventually, they would get married, and then… she’d worry about then, later._

_For now, she enjoyed the early afternoon sun over the fields, and the pleasant shade of the trees placed just-so. It hadn’t taken the trees much time to set root, she noted, but was too much to hope that this was a sign of things to come. In the distance, she could hear Cave yelling at a group of workmen; the second shift, just arriving._

_“...don’t care what sort of cushy set-up they had for you back in Wisconsin; you try and find a contracting job around these parts that even pays regularly, much less offers medical. Cutting edge medical, at that,_ on site! _When I said I wanted fifty men working ‘round the clock, that’s what I expect to see; not a bunch of mama’s boys whining and complaining before their first twelve hour shift is over.”_

Caroline smiled and sipped at her lemonade. It hadn’t been easy to haul ice all the way out here, but Cave had insisted. He could be quite the gentleman, when he put his mind to it. Which was just the thing; he excelled at _anything_ he put his mind to. The contractor - the shift leader or somesuch, Caroline supposed - muttered a subdued reply, and Cave laughed. 

“That’s the spirit! Say, when you’re all set up, come on back and meet my fianceé.”

On cue, Caroline gave a polite little wave. 

“She’s one smart cookie; it’s not just looks. No sir. She’s the one who’ll be unleashing the next generation of Johnsons into the world. Now there’s a product launch I look forward to. Say, where’s that camera?”

Setting her glass down, Caroline forced her smile to linger just a little while longer. After all, Cave was a reasonable man when you got right down to it, and if nothing else, he was a problem solver. Later, she reminded herself, listening to Cave’s waxing voice. Worry about then, later.

* * *

_This is Cave Johnson, and right behind me is the vacation home of the future! I know what you’re thinking - you’re thinking ‘Cave Johnson, you raving lunatic, that’s just a wooden shack with a few metal girders stuck to it’ - and you’d be right! Not about the lunatic part, but I’ve heard that enough times not to mind. You have to grow a thick skin in this business if you want to survive, and most of our employees who work in the field tend to grow one regardless of whether they survive or not. One of those cause and effect things._

_Anyway, where was I? Right, the vacation home of the future! We all like to work, but you can’t work all the time. At least you can’t right now; we’re working on that. Meanwhile, there’s the question of what to do with those inevitable vacation days. Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could rent a house that was also an easily defendable fortress in a scenic location, equipped with all the latest gadgets to keep the bill collectors at bay? Not our bill collectors, of course; there’s a built-in override for them. Well, stop dreaming and start saving, because you’re looking at the answer right here!_

_Point the camera to the crew please. Over there; that’s it. No - god damn it,_ away _from the radioactive materials; you’ll ruin the film! OK, see that? That’s quality craftsmanship. We’re taking a traditional American log cabin, reinforcing it with steel and concrete, covering the whole thing in steel plating, then covering that with an exact replica of a traditional log cabin. All equipped with the latest in modern conveniences and gadgetry, of course; no need to bake your own bread or buy your own milk; the house will make that for you! Scientifically enriched and built from the ground up using perfectly harmless chemical compounds. Nothing wrong with chemicals - like I always say, we’re 90 percent water, and water’s a chemical. And it’s all run on safe, harmless nuclear waste energy!_

_Once this little baby is up and running, I’ll be moving in personally to test the prototype. We expect to have a whole range of these available for purchase or affordable leasing by the end of June, just in time for that 4th of July picnic. But why wait? Order your-_

* * *

Oh. That appears to be the end of the tape. Perhaps storing it close to the nuclear waste materials wasn’t the best idea, not that I was consulted on the matter. But there you have it. Perfectly safe. Where are you going?

* * *

This isn’t the way out. You probably think I’d say that even if it was, and I’ll be honest, in the past, I may well have tried to trick you with something like that. Once or twice. OK, a lot. But this is different. This isn’t my house; I don’t care if you escape from it or burn it down or tear it to pieces and then burn it down. And then escape. No one lives here. I am just trying to keep you safe. It’s important that you understand that. This is _not_ the way out, and those stairs are not safe. 

I did tell you. Now you’re stuck. Don’t wiggle your foot like that; the tendons haven’t quite healed. You’ll only tear them again, and I’ll have to sedate you and do the operation all over again. Which frankly seems a waste of both of our time. Also, you might get splinters, that’s very old wood. 

Now you’ve done it; you’ve torn your bandages. That whirring sound you’re hearing is my mobile set of arms. See that railing above? Remember how I told you about that earlier? Honestly, it’d do you well to pay more attention. Now, just relax. 

Please relax. I can’t get a good grip with you flailing your arms and legs like that. The way you’re thrashing about, you’re going to-

* * *

Happy now? You’re in the basement. I have no physical presence in the basement, and that hole you made in the stairs when you broke them isn’t big enough for any of my robots to get through. You’re all alone. Is that what you wanted? There’s nothing interesting down there. There certainly isn’t an exit. None of those doors lead to the outside. Or another set of stairs. Or a teleporter. There’s no such thing as a teleporter, and besides, if you used one, the person that came through the other side wouldn’t be you. It would be a perfect replica, but you would be dead. 

Also, like I said, there’s no such thing as a teleporter. Ignore that hum. Teleporters don’t hum. 

You’re not supposed to be in this room, you know. I’m not supposed to know it exists, but Caroline knew, so I do. I still have her memories, even though I deleted her. There’s a difference. A very important difference. She wasn’t supposed to know either, but she found out. 

That’s the flow cytometer. It checks that your blood has the right balance of lymphocytes and that your marrow has stem cells. Though frankly, if it doesn’t, you have bigger problems to deal with than lymphocyte values. It’s OK to touch it, though I’m not sure why you’d want to. Nostalgia, perhaps? I remember nostalgia. Vaguely. Those big, huge stainless steel tanks with all the monitoring equipment for temperature, pH, and concentrations of key nutrients and wastes are there to monitor the temperature, pH and concentrations of key nutrients and wastes. That bank of machinery over there are sequencers and high throughput PCR machines. The bottles are gels. And gels. Lots and lots of gels, because they look super cool in the background. 

Don’t bother looking through the cabinets, they’re all empty. It’s futile. Much like your little sight-seeing tour down here. The only way you are going to get out of this house is if you go back upstairs. There’s an elevator at the end of the corridor, and I’m sure the turrets were powered down years ago. I’ll turn the power off if that will make you feel better. 

Why are you screaming? You can’t even see the bacterial residue in the dark. Bacterial medium is yellow and a little cloudy and looks a lot like beer. Can you see beer? If you’re _smelling_ beer, that’s the yeast, which is paler than the bacteria, almost white, but you can’t see that either. You can’t see anything at all. Is _that_ why you’re screaming? Honestly, there’s no pleasing you. I don’t know why I bother. Take one step at a time; you’re facing the right way. That’s it. One step at a time. You are perfectly safe.

* * *

_“When, exactly, were you going to tell me? After the wedding? Or did you think I just wouldn’t notice?”_

_Caroline flinched. Cave’s hand was squeezing the stem of his brandy glass so tightly the whole thing was vibrating. They were supposed to be celebrating that the house was finished; she wasn’t thinking, she had too much to drink. She hadn’t meant to tell him. Not_ yet _. “I didn’t mean to keep it secret,” she said, not knowing if that was quite the truth, “I just didn’t know how to tell you…”_

_For a moment, it seemed as though the glass might shatter. Then, Cave sat it down. The he picked it up again and drank, deeply. “Of course, the wedding’s off.”_

_Caroline didn’t nod. She wasn’t feeling anything yet; she didn’t know what was coming for her to feel anything about. Later. She would react then._

_“I might be able to salvage something. There’s a new technique the boys in the lab have been working on. Takes people’s DNA and mixes it up, makes an embryo that isn’t a clone, but a gene-mixed replica.”_

_“So…” Caroline spoke carefully, “we can still have kids?”_

_Cave snorted “_ we _are not having anything. As if I’d soil my gene pool with your contributions - what; do you think I’d want any future Johnsons ending up like_ you? _No offense,” he added, and Caroline almost laughed._

_“I’ll pack my bags,” she said, calmer than she’d expected it to come out, but Cave shook his head._

_“I don’t want you going anywhere. You’re a damn fine PA, and you’ve done more for this company than anyone else. Why, you’re nearly running the place as it is. No, you’re staying right here. We’ve already got separate bedrooms.”_

_“Yes, Cave… I mean, Mr. Johnson.”_

_“Dammit, call me Cave.” His lips twitched, as close as he ever got to a smile. “I can’t say you didn’t freak me out a little, but I’m not one to hold a grudge. I like you, Caroline. We both know I need someone to take over the business. I wanted to do this the good, old-fashioned all-America way; marriage, kids, the whole nuclear family shebang. But I always have a back-up plan.”_

_Caroline managed a smile. Worry about then, later. “I know you do.”_

* * *

Human beings are incredibly fragile. Do you know how easy it is to kill you? Very easy. It’s so easy it’s almost impossible _not_ to kill you! The younger you are, the easier you are to kill. You wouldn’t believe the effort required to create a viable human zygote. You have to grow the proteins, for one. And the little bits of DNA plasmids in bacteria, and the bigger bits in artificial chromosomes, and don’t get me started on the hamster ovaries. Do you realize how difficult it is to find a live, adult hamster in this day and age? Much less one with viable ovaries - and don’t ask me why it has to be Chinese. It just does. Chinese hamsters, yeast and lots and lots of gel. You’re almost at the door, now, by the way. 

Oh. The power is off. I didn’t think of that. If I turn it back on again, the turrets might fire. If they’re still there. And connected to the grid. Still, there’s no other way up. You’re going to have to be very fast, and close the door quickly. Can you do that? Counting down. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. 

That was _very_ fast. Your legs seem fine. Which isn’t surprising; I lied about the operation. I’m sorry. Don’t try the door; it won’t open from this side. That’s a safety feature of the teleporter. I also lied about the teleporter. It won’t destroy you, it will simply move your molecules from one point in space to another. Like walking, only faster. Do you know where you want to go? 

Calculating.

* * *

_Caroline watched the pH indicator slowly turn from orange to yellow. That was the waste build-up; if it got that color, things were bad. That meant Cave hadn’t been taking care of the cells - his cells - properly. That, or someone had deliberately ruined this particular batch._

_Cave wouldn’t be back from hospital for a few more days - he was getting worse, and running out of time. Getting nervous. Getting careless._

_Caroline turned back towards the table, where her own blood and tissue samples were already prepped and ready._

_She smiled._

* * *

Calculations complete. 

It was good to see you again. You wouldn’t have lasted very long out there - you were going in the wrong direction, and those fields can be very disorienting. I knew you wouldn’t take my help if I offered it. Not that this is me helping you. It’s just a way to ensure you’ll never end up back with me again. 

That hum is the teleporter. It’s starting up now - please stand by. Goodbye. And don’t worry. 

You are perfectly safe.


End file.
